Sunday, July 22, 2007

Two absolutely unassociated quotes hereby given a common ground

One suggestive bracket for the project and very close ot the idea of the interview which guided Żmijewski in the realisation of this cycle, is Truth Serum. Althamer is asked a series of question while under sodium pentothal. Żmijewski begins with the usual prosaic issues: Where do you live? How many children do you have? (...) And at the end, a question about art: 'What is the significance of the fact that you make sculpture, dolls, films?' 'It gives me joy,' replies Althamer. 'I like when people laugh.'

- in:Artur Żmijewski. If it happened only once it's as if it never happened. (my bold)

And if you really need a connection, here is a quote and a song (uhmmm... press play):

“A new born child has no teeth.”—“A goose has no teeth.”—“A rose has no teeth.”—This last at any rate—one would like to say—is obviously true! It is even surer than that a goose has none.—And yet it is none so clear. For where should a rose’s teeth have been? The goose has none in its jaw. And neither, of course, has it any in its wings; but no one means that when he says it has no teeth.—Why, suppose one were to say: the cow chews its food and then dungs the rose with it, so the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast. This would not be absurd, because one has no notion in advance where to look for teeth in a rose. ((connexion with ‘pain in someone else’s body’.))

L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (for a simple analysis followed by a ridiculously complicated statement, see here, and for a note on Bruce Nauman's work inspired by this quote see here)